Tale of a Tenno: The First Nova
by Merely A Wanderer
Summary: This is a story about the first Tenno to wield the Nova Warframe. It follows the events of her life immediately prior to the Tennos' betrayal of the Orokin. From how she became a Tenno, to how the whole coup d'etat went down. Rated M for violence/gore and language.
1. Prologue

_**Hey there, Warframe fans. This story is about one possible explanation for the events prior to the mass cryogenic freezing of the Tenno and the origins of the Nova Warframe. This prologue introduces us to our heroine, Senara. I hope you enjoy it, and I should hopefully have more soon. I appreciate any constructive feedback, it helps a lot!**_

Prologue

The Charger came running towards her. It leapt into the air and tried to pounce upon its prey. But the Nova ducked just in time. In one fluid movement, she slung the Reaper Prime off of her back and swung it in an upward arc, cleaving the Infested in half. The Charger gave a dying scream, and landed in two pieces ten meters away. The Warframe rolled forward into a standing position, sheathed her scythe, and drew her Latron Wraith rifle. She spun around and pulled the trigger, putting one bullet through the red tentacles of an Ancient Disruptor and felling the beast. "Headshot," she whispered to herself.

The Tenno glanced at the data displayed on her HUD. Her suit's systems were all in good condition, and she had just reached an energy charge of 300. However, the artifact she and her comrades were defending had just lost shields and its integrity was dropping fast. She smiled an unseen smile. "Time for some fireworks," she said. The Nova fired two anti-matter drops in quick succession. The pulsating light blue balls of energy attached themselves to two groups of enemies and detonated, effectively disintegrating the Infested and clearing the way for the Nyx and the Mirage in the group. The Nova then climbed up the wall to a ledge.

She leapt down from the ledge and positioned herself to land next to the Orokin artifact and in the middle of a group of about forty Infested. The moment she hit the ground she released half of her remaining energy. All of the Infested within a twenty meter radius began to glow with a light blue haze as every molecule in their body became primed to explode. However the Infested were still very much alive, though significantly slower. They began to attack the Nova from all sides, in every vicious way that they could. She was stunned and couldn't escape, in under two seconds her shields dropped to zero. But just as her shields vanished, her third ally, a Nekros, loosed an explosive arrow from his Dread right into the middle of the fray. The arrow made contact with a Charger, punching through what was once a Grineer's skull, then detonated. The Charger exploded, and set off a chain reaction that detonated every single other Infested in the area.

For a moment all four Tenno were bathed in the light of the explosion and hit with the force of its shockwave. Standing in the middle of it all, the Nova took in all aspects of the detonation of some sixty Infested. The cacophony of roars immediately followed by an impossibly loud "BOOM!" her favorite sound. Lacking any shields, she felt the intense but pleasant heat of the mass detonation on her skin. She was illuminated, the light accentuating every feature of her streamlined and shapely body. Even though her suit auto-regulated the intake of light to reduce strain on her eyes, her reflexes forced her to close them in an attempt to prevent blindness.

She opened her eyes again just in time to see the clouds of dust that had been her enemies settle on the floor of the derelict Orokin ship, and hear the victory cries of the other Tenno as the words _Wave Cleared_ flashed on all of their HUDs. They had defended the artifact through thirty rounds of hell and would be well rewarded for it, and they now sought relief. The four Tenno mutually agreed to evacuate. As she went through the evac process and was congratulated for skill and bravery, only one thought echoed in the Nova's mind, _Bang.  
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The Nova's name was Senara. She was among the youngest of the Tenno (even still, due to the Great Sleep, she was centuries old), and the Nova Warframe was the only one she had ever known. She had been the first to use Nova, and the only Tenno to have been directly involved in the testing of its prototype. Nova had finished development just months before the Great Sleep. And, unlike most Tenno, Senara was sealed in her cryopod with an advanced frame, much to the chagrin of the Grineer who woke her.

Now back aboard her Liset class starship, Senara removed her frame and wore her true skin, her human skin. Wearing nothing in the privacy of her home, she moved to the front of her ship, bare feet padding up the cold metal ramp, her long brown hair moving slightly in the light breeze of ventilation from the air recyclers. She knelt in front of the star map, and a holographic display of various planets and missions popped up. She shut down the holo-map and the ever-present, ever-irritating, Ordis AI. Senara just wanted some peace and quiet.

As she had done many times before, Senara began to massage the aching, mutated sections of her body. From her fingertips, all the way up her left arm, the upper left portion of her back, to the entirety of her left breast, her skin was varying shades of grey with splotches of green. Tenno never appeared to each other outside of their Warframes, so Senara had never seen the scars that the technocyte virus had left on another of her kind. Even still, she knew that she was lucky, in more ways than one. Such a small portion of her body had been changed by the Infested, but she had come closer to death from it than most others. The infection had stopped just before her heart.

She gazed out of the observation deck of her ship, her piercing green eyes scanning the infinity of stars before her. She had what some would say was a gift, depending on the day, she would call it a curse. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was the natural strength of her mind, or maybe it was just a completely random factor that had had a positive effect on the cryogenics process, she didn't know. Her gift/curse, that which distinguished her even more from the other Tenno, was her memory. For some reason, Senara was able to remember her past with uncanny clarity. Even when sleep had destroyed and clouded the memories of the other Tenno, Senara could still remember days past, centuries past, as though they were yesterday. And so, as she had done many times before, as her brothers and sisters would never do again, Senara gazed out into the heavens and remembered.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was late autumn, and the leaves on Earth's genetically altered trees were a symphony of red, yellow, and orange. Senara was standing in line at the Osagah spaceport. After months of waiting, she had finally gotten a travel pass from the Orokin government's D.I.S.T. (Department of Intra-System Transportation). She stood in line with a huge grin on her face. She was going to finally fulfill her lifelong dream. She was going to travel the stars.

For a human girl growing up in Osagah city, six-hundred and thirty-thousand square kilometers of urban and suburban landscape dominating what was once called the American Southwest, her dreams seemed grandiose, if not impossible. Senara was born just two years before the start of the Orokin-Sentient war, and for the majority of her life, inter-planetary travel was restricted to military, government, and the most necessary of commerce. At the age of five she lost her parents in a solar rail accident. After that, she and her older brother moved to Osagah to live with their godparents. Her godmother, Clara, was a kind woman, but she ignored Senara for the most part, preferring her brother, Terrance. However, her godfather, Ran'qu, an orokin man, loved her as though she were his own daughter. Ran'qu had once worked on the design and maintenance of solar rails. So, being very knowledgeable on the subject, he taught his adopted daughter almost everything he knew about astronomy, and he told her stories about the many different places he'd been all over the system. It was Ran'qu who inspired Senara to travel the stars.

The times she spent with her adopted family were the best years of Senara's life, but war destroys all that it touches. She was fifteen when the Orokin-Sentient war reached its critical point. The tech reliant Orokin couldn't stand up to combination Human rebel and rogue AI Sentient army. The Orokin government became desperate and paranoid, it would be another year before the construction of the first Warframes. In their paranoia, the government began arresting people left and right, most were innocent. Ran'qu was not.

He had been a supporter of the Sentients, and had, on multiple occasions, helped them sabotage solar rails. When the government caught wind of it, there was a raid on the family's middle-class Osagah home. Clara was killed on the spot for resisting arrest, right in front of Terrance's eyes. Senara had been visiting friends at the time of the raid, but she had seen her godfather publicly executed two days later. She could still remember how he looked moments before the end, a brave and proud look in his inhuman, blood red eyes.

After that, the twice orphaned teens were thrown into the foster system. They were never in one home for very long. Two years later, Terrance turned eighteen and volunteered for the army before he was caught by the draft. Within six months he was deployed, just before the top-secret Tenno started to transform the war. He promised to come back, but died on Jupiter. It was his first mission.

From that day on, Senara went cold. No longer did she feel the pain of her loss. She was seventeen-years-old and, with no friends or family, completely alone. Over the next three years, she worked odd jobs just trying to get by. Three years of hardship turned the abandoned teenager into an independent adult.

Then, one month after her twentieth birthday, the war ended, and the entire system rejoiced, even Senara. With her heart finally thawed and her ambitions renewed, she set her plan into motion. She applied for a visa to travel to Mars and help in the reconstruction. Earth may have been the best place to live in the system, but "the grass is always greener."

The line moved forward and Senara moved three steps closer to Mars, not a sad thought in her head, a broad smile on her face. Two years ago people would have glanced at the ecstatic, brown haired, twenty-one-year-old and thought her insane. But in this time of new peace you couldn't fault anyone for being too happy. The line moved forward and Senara gazed out of the massive glass windows at the city where she'd spent the last sixteen years of her life. She felt no sorrow at the thought of leaving. In fact, she couldn't be happier. The line moved again and she was at the admissions desk. The orokin woman sitting in the aluminum kiosk had green hair and piercing pink eyes, but otherwise looked very much like a human. Isn't it funny how such insignificant things as appearances and heritage can separate people?

"Ticket?" the woman asked. _'Ticket'_, the word was a relic from long ago. Everything was data now, nothing but numbers and energy and holograms. Nevertheless, Senara handed the woman a small piece of rounded metal. The orokin took it and placed it within a circle on her desk and a holo-screen with travel information blinked into existence. She scanned the screen for a moment, and then said, "Go on through." Senara stepped through the open door next to the kiosk and into a cylindrical room about a meter in diameter. After a momentary delay, she felt a temporary inertial force pull down on her body as the space elevator began to ascend. In about thirty seconds she would leave Earth's lower atmosphere.

3. 2. 1. The elevator slowed, then stopped. The inertia lightly launched Senara into the air where she floated a moment before the artificial gravity kicked in. The elevator doors opened with a hiss, and she stepped into the exospheric section of the Osagah space port, 800 kilometers from the Earth's surface. Unlike the terrestrial area of the port, which was empty except for the long admission lines and baggage checks, the area that existed in Earth's upper atmosphere was alive. Alive with the bustle of humans and orokin alike moving to and from gates and waiting for their flights to come in. Most were there for like reasons. Settlers, like Senara, of all sorts were drifting through the terminal, the majority owning nothing but the clothing on their backs.

Senara moved out of the human traffic, set down her grey duffel bag, and leaned against one of the terminal walls. She looked at her "wristwatch." Upon making eye contact with it, a light blue holographic screen materialized just above the surface of the "watch" and displayed the time. Using her index finger, Senara swiped the display to the left twice and up once. The holo-screen, now a pale yellow, displayed a page titled: "Reminders." She scanned the text on the screen, looking for the number of her flight.

"Flight number 113. Gate E15," Senara confirmed the info on her holo-watch aloud. Just then, a woman's voice sounded over the terminal intercom.

"Flight number 113 boarding in five minutes," the woman's voice rang out across the station. "Flight number 113 boarding in five minutes."

"Well, better get going," Senara said in response to the announcement. She bent down and picked up her duffel bag, then slung it over her shoulder. Her watch went dark, its sensors no longer registering the focused brain waves from her attentive conscious. She started off in what she believed to be the direction of gate E15.

Having arrived at the gate barely a minute before boarding, Senara was stuck at the back of the line. There were only about forty or so other passengers at gate E15. She took note of this, and was, at first, confused. _Hmm… For an interplanetary flight, there aren't many passengers. _She looked out of the observation window to her left, and the image that greeted her explained the passengers.

What she saw, docked outside of the gate, was a Hammer-class space ferry. It wasn't a small ship, nor was very large. It certainly could have carried more passengers by the look of it. Senara's godfather had taught her about a wide variety of spacecraft, and one of his favorites was the Hammer. It definitely wasn't for the look of it. The ship had a dirty bronze hull, dented by collisions with space debris. The front was nearly twice as wide as the rear, giving it the shape of a hammer or an axe. A small portion of the bow was used for navigation, and the rest of it, nearly seventy percent of the ship, was cargo space. The rear was reserved for passengers. Therefore, the ship attached to the station at its stern. The engines were weak and ill-suited for long voyages. This was because the Hammer-class had been designed almost exclusively for solar rail travel, and this was one of the reasons Ran'qu had admired them. _'When this war is over and people can travel again,'_ Ran'qu had told Senara one day,_ 'these ferries will bring life back to the system with supplies and people.'_ The thought of her godfather almost brought tears to her eyes. _Thanks, Dad._

Boarding began and the passengers quickly passed through the gate's tunnel and onto the ship. Seating arrangements on space ferries are similar to busses. Unlike traditional passenger craft, there is no designated seating. So, being the last one to board, Senara had little choice in where to sit. In the end, she chose one of the two seats closest to the door, closest to the back. The man in the seat beside her was incredibly well built. He had an imposing, and not unattractive, muscular figure. But there was something inexplicably ominous about the man. He was wearing a grey tank top and camouflage pants with combat boots, similar to military fatigues and not much different than Senara's outfit; but she was wearing jeans, not camo. His most notable feature, was the scarring on his right side. It started at the cheek and appeared to end at his shoulder. The wound may have covered part of his chest, but Senara couldn't tell. It was an odd scar to say the least. At first she had thought it to be a burn mark, but the scar had an odd coloration. It was black-grey, with smears of green and yellow. Senara suddenly realized that she was staring, the man realized this as well.

"Uh... D-did you get that during the war? The scars, I mean," Senara said nervously. Her eyes darted from his scars, to his face, to the other passengers.

"You could say that," the man said in a deep monotone voice. He held her gaze for a few moments, a hard expression on the chiseled features of his face, then looked away. They both sat there in an awkward silence, until the tension faded into an average and dull quiet.

After a few minutes, the pilot came over the speakers and ordered everyone to their seats, declaring that they would be departing shortly. In a few moments, the boarding tunnel had detached and the engines flared. The ship began to move towards the nearby Earth-Mars solar rail; and the acceleration ring at the end of the rail blinked to life. The ship approached the disk of energy. Looking through it, one would notice the unnerving sight of the distorted space behind it. In fact, this had been exactly what Senara was thinking, looking out the thick crystalline windows, when the ship crossed the acceleration ring's event horizon. To anyone watching at the terminal, the ship had disappeared instantaneously, and for all they knew, it wasn't coming back.

The ferry rapidly accelerated to an extreme speed, causing a great deal of turbulence in the process. Once reaching a velocity near the speed of light, the ride became much smoother and the captain made an announcement. He said that it should be a smooth ride to Mars, but unfortunately, due to the orbits of Earth and Mars, the two planets were as far from each other as they could be while still allowing solar rail travel. So, the trip would take longer than usual, about fifteen minutes. Senara breathed deeply as a wave of relief swept over her. She had been unsure about travelling on a solar rail, considering that her parents were killed by one. But now her anxiety drifted away with each passing moment.

However, what no one on the ferry could have possibly known, was that the captain was wrong. The ship would not reach Mars in fifteen minutes, because a terrible accident was about to befall this ship. About thirteen minutes into the trip, thirteen minutes of a seemingly calm and average ride, the solar rail exploded. 

**_So that's chapter 1. I know, not very exciting just a bunch of exposition. But in chapter 2, the story will really start to pick up. Let me hear from you. Feedback is the best way to improve as a writer. So, keep sending me those reviews! I hope you really enjoy the story so far. Thank you for reading!_**


End file.
